SIM Card Registration Fraud: People’s Ghana Card Data Are Being Stolen – Sam George

The Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram, Sam Nartey George, has alleged the data of Ghanaians are being stolen through the ongoing nationwide SIM card registration exercise.

According to him, there is evidence that Ghana Card details of Ghanaians are being used to register SIMS cards that are not theirs without their knowledge.

In a Facebook post shared on Thursday, April 4, 2023, the MP said that the breach in data of Ghanaians is the reason why the National Communication Authority (NCA) has announced it is working on a short code for Ghanaians to verify the number of SIM cards their data have been used to register.

“There is widespread evidence that there are multiple breaches of citizen’s personal data during the SIM card registration exercise. A grave issue in any serious jurisdiction.

“Do not forget that I had raised this issue on the 17th of October 2022 and the response from the National Communications Authority Ghana was that they were doing mystery shopping.

“Today, the Director of Legal at the Regulator is not telling us steps taken to check the extent of the breach but is shifting responsibility to citizens to wait for an app to check if they have suffered a breach. Good graces! How low have we sunk as a nation?” parts of the post he shared read.

The MP went on to advise the NCA to take the steps below to mitigate the impact of the data breach.

1. The NCA should immediately halt any further registration and conduct a thorough investigation of registration records to have determine how many SIMs have been registered with each unique Ghana Card number.

2. They should then send messages to the primary number associated with each Ghana Card notifying the holder of the number of SIMs registered.

3. Where there is an issue of unauthorised registration using the Ghana Card, the customer is then given a chance to raise a complaint and the Data Protection Commission Ghana is immediately activated to determine the challenges with whichever Data Processor was involved and remedial steps taken including compensation and punitive action on the Data Processor.

4. 4. Based on the findings of the DPC and NCA, criminal charges for identity theft and Data breaches would be brought against the persons or entities involved in the identity theft.

The National Communication Authority, in a post shared on Facebook, on Wednesday, announced that it is working with operators to build a shortcode that the public can use to check the number of SIM cards their Ghana Card have been used to register.

The NCA stated that the public can use the shortcode on the phone and that the SIMs associated with the Ghana Card will be shown following a verification process.

“The NCA and the Telcos have already been actively working on a short code for Individual Subscribers to verify the number of SIMs associated with a Ghana card; you just type the shortcode on your phone, and after a verification process using your Ghana Card pin, the number of SIMs associated with the Ghana card will be displayed.

“There will be no need for Subscribers to physically go to the Telco to verify the same when the shortcode is operational, by the end of April 2023, after the testing has been completed and approved,” the post read.